Moonless Night : EDWARD's POV New Moon
by EdLana
Summary: When there is no sleep to provide an escape and time will never let you forget, how do you escape the life of love that you willingly gave up? At least Bella had the blessing of mindless oblivion.Starts at ch.3 when Edward leaves Bella! R&R, first fanfic!
1. The End

**I, of course, do not own any of the characters portrayed in this story. All of the characters are the property of Stephanie Meyer**

**ANY feedback would be greatly appreciated!**

**PLEASE REVIEW!!**

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**_Juliet: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, who monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable. _

_Romeo: What shall I swear by? _

_Juliet: Do not swear at all. Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee._

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(Chapter 3 in 'New Moon')

1. The End

I was acutely aware of the overwhelming revulsion threatening to tear me in half.

It was all I could manage to remain upright, but the agony was so intense that I could feel a fault line forming through my chest, making it very difficult to breathe.

To solve the problem, I simply stopped breathing.

It was no help.

I fought to keep a calm exterior, though my hands still clenched into fists on their own accord, possessed by a torment that reminded me wildly of what Jane was capable of. It seemed useless to fight against pain so strong that I was locked in place, though my heart was trying its very best to claw its way from my –impossibly-- still intact frame.

"Goodbye, Bella."

I had been rehearsing this line for so long, dreading the moments after it with a devouring fervor for so many days…That I couldn't help the calm, cool tone with which it escaped my constricted throat.

The gig was up, then.

There was no way Bella would be fooled by a line that seemed as impossibly rehearsed as _that…_But the dawning comprehension on her face proved otherwise.

She reached for me, her searching hands the only escape I had ever known

I hastily looked away, so that she wouldn't be able to read my expression.

The fact that I had managed to say the words at all only enhanced the nightmarish quality of this moment. There was a shift in the air as the lie registered with her. Her heart sputtered frantically, her breathing spiked and hitched as it choked in her throat. "Wait!" Her voice came strangled, cracked and dry.

That in itself nearly set me back on my promise – the one where I had promised to keep Bella safe, under _any_ means.

Including this.

The pain in her voice, the agony apparent in her quickly deteriorating posture, the unbearable knowledge that I myself had caused her anguish had me reaching back for her before I had consciously realized what I was doing. Bella's pain was mine. My every instinct, everything I had ever known, reached forth in my arms to comfort her as surely as hers reached out, willing to be comforted.

_'Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!__'...__'Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.'_

Hastily I changed the intent of my movement, as there was no way to ignore that there _had_ been an instinctive movement at this point. I gently moved her arms to her sides, trying to keep the movement firm. Ever particle of my being knew that I was refusing salvation, paradise, my last chance for a happily ever after. But she was the princess, and I the monster.

There was no place in her world for me.

I only allowed myself to touch her wrists rather than the sleeves of her jacket, giving me one last chance to touch her skin.

I could _feel_ the panic, shock, hurt…Every emotion I had ever sworn to protect Bella from, every feeling that now lashed at my soul – or, now, clearly authenticated lack thereof -- as it played across her face.

Fear and inspiration hit me in the same instant, forcing one last instant of contact...Or was it my own self preservation, trying to draw out the moment in which I would truly leave Happiness? Either way, I couldn't resist one last kiss, one last taste of Heaven to guide me through an eternity in Hell.

_'If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss._'I pressed my lips as lightly as I could to her forehead, where I couldn't see her eyes. "Take care of yourself" I begged. Please, please God, please take care of yourself. Forget me. Live the life you so solemnly deserve. Warmth, light, and another soul with which to share them. All the things I could never give you.

But she could not understand this, I could not tell her. She had to believe, I could allow no inkling of hope or daring to remain faithful to her. I had to hurt her, I had to break her, in order to give her a chance to mend.

_'Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this: Thou art a villain.'_

Like a coward, I ran.

I had to. In the name of life, in the name of love, in the name that encompassed it all: Bella.

I had already left a note for Charlie written in Bella's hand, telling him that she had gone for a walk in the forest. He would find her if she didn't return. I knew that I couldn't stay in Forks, and more importantly that I had to get as far away from her as possible before what I had done fully registered for myself. I only had so much self control, and all of my self preservation instincts would only send me back to her.

Right on cue, natural instinct kicked in.

Agony tore through me, though I had been coming to terms with what I had to do for several days.  
Every cell of my body ached in protest, screamed in defiance, writhed in unbearable agony…But the time had long passed where I cared whether I myself lived or died.

Which, I knew, without Bella, I surely would. But if figurative death for me was what it took to ensure a life for her...Then there really wasn't even a choice. Of course I would take it a million times over, it was hardly fair to even suggest otherwise. The darkest recesses of the deepest levels of the fiery pits of Hades had nothing on the tortures I would endure for her.

Because I knew what I was doing was right.

The old human adage stated that to love someone was to let them go.

Couldn't she see that was what I was doing now? Part of me wanted so desperately for her to understand, but I knew how foolish it was to hope against hope at a time like this.

I wasn't meant to be a part of her world, and the time had long since passed where I had been forced to the conclusion that, one way or another, one of us would be leaving that world permanently. Better me than her. I shuddered at the thought.

Again, I had to marvel.

She had believed me.

She had actually, _truly_ believed me.  
Believed that I could _possibly_ live without needing her.  
Even after the million times I had told her I loved her! How could one word have broken her faith in me so quickly?  
If I lived to be one hundred-thousand years old, no misdeed I ever committed could ever come close to being as abhorrently horrendous as that.

At least this was the last time I would ever hurt her.

The thought almost calmed me.

'_Love is a familiar._

_Love is a devil._

_There is no evil angel but Love.'_


	2. Running

**I, of course, do not own any of the characters portrayed in this story. All of the characters are the property of Stephanie Meyer**

**ANY feedback would be greatly appreciated!**

Running

All I knew was the running.

For days on end, I refused to stop. Something so mindless, so naturel…It was the closest thing to sleep I could possibly have.

So I ran.

I ran to escape reality, heading east with the path of night so that I wouldn't have to stop for the binds of daylight. Because If I stopped…If I let myself think, I was afraid of what I may find I had become. So for now, it was the only escape.

No, more than that. It was my only hope, to somehow outrun the pain, the knowledge of myself and what I had done nipping at my heels.

More than anything, I wished to simply dissolve into the barren winds whipping at my face.

That thought struck me, and I pondered it further.

If I kept running, _could _I eventually dissolve? How different really _was_ I to a marble statue, besides being animate?..And even _that_ was open to discussion as far as mythical creatures were concerned. Did I count as a being at all? Or was I simply a golem, a member of the damned doomed to walk the earth never quite alive, yet never quite dead…

The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if perhaps the constant running _was_ taking its toll on me, and I actually _was_ dissolving into the wind, like a stone worn through. The primary reason for this was the gaping, ragged,emptiness that even all of my carefully composed numbness couldn't contain. It felt as if a giant hole had been ripped through my torso, as if my heart really _had_ refused to part with Bell-

_Dammit!_

I cursed as my legs locked and I fell to the ground, propelling into a nearby spruce tree that promtly fell over. The seething agony blinded my other senses. I wished for death more feverantly that I ever had in my too long, drawn out li-..existance.

I had _thought her name!_ All of my carefuly constructed oblivion, in shatters.

_Dammit, Dammit, Dammit…_

I chorused in my head as all of the hurt I had been outrunning promptly caught up with me. My breathing came sharp and ragged as each and every mistake I had made along the way presented itself. Every precious moment with Bella cut me with barbed, knife edges, and every cherished memory had come to haunt me with the bittersweet errors of my ways. Every time I had taken her closer, less and less from her own world and more into my own, as a spider wraps an insect before it feasts.

There was nothing in the world worth this kind of agony.

Except for one girl.

Somewhere in then very back corners of my mind, something was trying to get itself noticed, something I had forgotten…But to figure out what it _was,_ I had to commit to the implausible task of getting a hold on myself…Which I was already doing in the literal sense, my arms pressed tightly around my body as I tried to hold my empty sides together.

Every moment was a curse I was damned to live, every tick of the clock another of the endless reaching eternities in which I was doomed to suffer. It was impossible, unthinkable, that with each new second I was still alive. Even immortality didn't seem a good enough means to be keeping me alive at this point of agony, and I found the only thing thing keeping me from going and _finding_ some other means of death was the promise I had made to Bella.

As long a she was alive, so would I remain to walk the earth.

But not a moment more.

It was agonizing. What was a human life span, 80 years? On one hand, I could barely will it to come soon enough and put me out of my misery. On the other, the thought that there could be a time in which Bella didn't exist made me sick with prayers of longevity.

Rain started to fall gently,the sharp sounds of raindrops hitting the foliage of the forest made making me wince into the smooth darkness of the night…Not that it made a difference to anything. None of the peace of this place could touch me where I was, jailed inside my own mind. It caused no relief to the burning that seemed to be eating me from the inside.

After all of my carefulness, one slip had opened the floodgates, and that one word I had avoided filled me like a drug. As much as I couldn't get enough, with each hit I knew I would only get worse.

_Bella. Bella. Bella._

As each repetition drove its thorns deeper into the raw recesses of what had once been a heart, I knew I would pay for my sins when dawn came.

**( A/N Please review this story and tell me if it's worth continuing! Any other feedback would also be greatly appreciated.)**


	3. Wakeup Call

And come dawn did.

Somehow, the world still turned.

Morning faded into afternoon, and noon melded into night.

The wind still bothered the stillness of the trees

The bees still filled the lethargic silence with an endless droning hum

The underbrush still grew, pushing its way towards the sunlight none of it would ever reach…

At least my presence had warranted a lack of birds.

Somehow, the sun still set, continuing its path in an utterly predictable blaze of glory.

As impossible as it was, all of nature seemed oblivious to the fact that the world had ended.

For days I didn't move, waiting for this reality to warrant a change in atmosphere. Why was there calm when there should have been pandemonium? My world had been plunged into hell, but where was the chaos?

And the sun rose and set.

Rose, and set

I barely noticed. How could I be expected to pay attention to the mundane details of the ordinary when I had given up something so far reaching from even the extraordinary?

The softly filtered forest light that broke amber through the dense, high foliage couldn't touch the soul I lacked, nor did I care for the ethereal glow that was imbued upon my surroundings, nor the shafts of golden light with the strange penchants to stray upon trickling waterfalls or wet, moss-covered stones. The subdued radiance threw faintly glowing emeralds off of my exposed skin and into the shallow, clear chartreuse rock ponds that lay scattered in perfect disarray.

There was no _point _to any of it.

What was the reward of the of the tall too-patient trees, so long in age ago having lain their foundations, so long a wait to get to the ancient stages of life in which they now stood proud… Only to have life ended by the deep jade vines which clung to them, slowly strangling them to death. It was a strange truth of nature, the fact that there was always something there to kill the were the vines but choking parasites, destined to die themselves after they had killed the only reason they existed in the first place? To look pleasant while killing another, weaker and infinitely nobler creation. I knew all to well about these parallels in natural order. Another mockery perhaps, Gaia herself deciding to mirror all the pain there could exist in a place of such calm down to the one lone point.

Myself.

Everything else stood in stark contrast, teetering dangerously on the verge of unnatural, tranquil harmony. What could be more contrary to the blinding red turmoil that bubbled and heaved beneath my surface? Heat, pressure, time…To what else was marble and stone susceptible? Perhaps, having endured them all, I had finally cracked. The only other trace of sorrow that kept this place a reality was the mournful chirping of crickets, shallowly lamenting the loss of the summer that would undoubtabley return in a year's time.

None of the genesiacal beauty touched me; I had grown to learn how it meant nothing. How it never would, and never truly had.

The only thing I could feel were the effects of the one image I could never forget, undisputedly the last moment of my life.

All I saw was her face.

There was no doubt that the image would be seared forever into my eyelids, destined to be the only thing I would see any time I dared close my eyes.

I could recall in perfect detail the moment the blood had drained from her cheeks, the stark pause in which the light had retreated from her eyes;The choke in which her trust had broken, and the sharp breath in which her heart had fractured.

_Run, Bella, run! Stay Bella, stay!_

But what could it be to her by this point? She would have hurt for a few days-my breath caught at the thought of my being the cause of her pain-But then someone would have undoubtedly taken my place. How many people had there been in line behind me, jockeying for position?

And now it was fair game. Romeo had left after the first act, and Juliet had a ball full of suitors to make her forget about the unwelcome Montague who had wandered, uninvited, into their midst.

Suddenly, a shrill, unearthly shriek pierced the silence.

It took me a moment to realize that the noise was my phone.

When had I switched it from vibrating mode to a ring? The fact that I couldn't remember worried me slightly, and I considered simply leaving it. The ringing eventually stopped…Only to restart the sequence a few moments later. Obviously, someone was persistent enough to have hit redial.

Eventually , the realization that my family would leave me alone unless it was important permeated the many levels that clouded my consciousness…After all, I hadn't been gone very long…Yet.

Without saying a word, I flipped the phone open.

A moment of silence.

"Edward? Edward, please say something."

It was Alice. I took a long time to consider my next words.

"What, Alice." I muttered, my voice seeming too loud after the silence of so many days.

She exhaled in relief. "You're okay."

"It depends what you consider 'okay'. "

"Alright, so you're not okay. But at least you aren't-I mean, I thought I saw… something, but it doesn't matter. You're fine…Physically, anyways."

I didn't respond.

"You said you'd check in every once in a while." She continued undaunted.

What had it been, ten days? That was hardly cause for panic. "Alice, I've been gone for a week and a half, maybe two. I've been gone _hunting_ for longer than that. Exactly how often did you want me to check in?"

But all had gone silent on the other line.

It was my turn to worry.

"…Alice? Look, I'm sorry if I'm-"

"What did you say?" She whispered, her tone receding to a horrified whisper.

I huffed. "If you're going to get sarca-"

"Edward, what did you say about…about how long you've been gone?"

She had obviously heard me. Far was it for a vampire to forget anything, let alone words that had been spoken not even moments before."What are you getting at?"

"Edward…You've been gone for nearly two monthes."


	4. Undead

**As usual, I own none of the characters portrayed in this chapter. Those would belong to the marvelous Mrs. Meyer and associates.**

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**_Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer  
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.  
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee  
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!  
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'  
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**_-The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe  
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**Undead **

I could almost taste the shock on the back of my tongue, congealing time to a near halt.

Time is quite an interesting subject.

I had learned too long ago that it is no friend of mine, meant for the sole purpose of dragging out the eternity I have at my disposal. As for the nature of time, it seems that there is only one thing that can be generally agreed upon.

There is either not enough of it, or too much.

Time is relative.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was deeply and horribly aware of the fact that this train of thought had only sprung up to protect me from thinking about the moment at hand.

In this moment, time became thick, unbearably concrete...As frozen as I myself. Eons stretched out, universes were born and new suns aged into supernovas within the time span of that sprung up and were wiped out, art forms were invented, and eternity revealed its entirety to me within the span of the moment in which I was trapped. There was nothing, yet everything. Worlds collided in my head, and I remained cool, calm, and….

Unresponsive.

"Edward?" Came a patient voice through the many layers that clouded my consciousness, not quite hiding the deep apprehension that stirred below.

I couldn't answer; Alice wouldn't be able to hear me through the personal chaos I inhabited.

"…Edward, did you hear me?"

Of course. Another universe collapsed in on itself.

"…Ed, please say something." She begged quietly

It was all over. Finished. There was nothing left. No thought. No feeling. Not even me.

Not even Bella.

I heard a crack; the shell of my phone had split down the cheaply-made plastic backing. I had been gripping it too hard.

And then there was the pain. How could I be in pain when I didn't exist? But that's all there was. White hot and angry, it throbbed to every particle of my being, searing me in timeless agony.

I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't stay away. The hole left by lost love throbbed as if it were trying to re-create the heartbeat that I had been missing for so long. How appropriate, how ironic, as if I had no heart. A dead heart. Cold, lifeless, and always, always how it had been destined to remain. I couldn't see. I couldn't think.

There was too much.

There was not enough.

I deserved it. I deserved more. Oh, God. Oh, hell.

Oh, Bella.

Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella

I gasped out loud.

And then…I was awake.  
Truly awake.

For the first time in months, for the first time since I had…Left, what I knew I had to do became as clear as a glass pond.

"Alice!" The word dragged, deranged and sharp, from my mouth.

"Edward!" She squeaked, her voice scared and half-crazed at my unexplainable behavior

How could I have let myself stay here, week after week? How could I have been so irresponsible, so selfish, to not see what I had to do? I was furious with myself, how had I let myself mope when there were so many more important things to attend to?

A plan sprung into my head, already refined as if I had been planning it all along.

I heard Alice hiss as my future was set in stone.

I smiled to myself, feeling the crazed look that must have been all-too apparent on my face. What did I care? There was no more need to look human, no need to look like anything besides what I was.

A killer.

"No. No way." Her tone was flat."Edward, don't do it. Bring me with. Bring Emmett. Bring Jasper."

She could see as well as I that that was not going to happen. The desperation quickly escalating in her voice betrayed what she tried her best to hide.

"Don't do this by yourself. Don't do this _to _yourself."

"I've already done this to myself."

"Dammit, Edward! Can't you see what you're doing? Can't you see-"

"Guilt has nothing to do with it." I growled. "Even if-I mean, no matter the circumstances, you know I would have to do this anyways."

"But not alone. Don't underestimate her because you're trying to commit some sick sort of penance to punish yourself for love!"

The maniacal grin on my face receded as my plan solidified, as I grabbed a hold of myself, willing myself to ignore rationality, embracing purpose for what felt like the first time.

Fully _alive_ for the first time. A smile born of contempt quickly flashed across my face. Well, at least fully undead.

As of now, I had a new purpose. As of now, the burning resolve, the reckless, dangerous anger which was the only small antidote to any amount of pain consumed me.

"I won't. I'm not. Alice, she will die."

I repeated myself, the conviction strengthening in my near-unused voice.

"Victoria _will_ die."

There was a moment of silence on the line. She could see the scattered threads of my future as they suddenly found direction. A deep breath shuddered through her windpipe as she saw that nothing she did would change my mind."…There's no way I can convince you, is there?"

"No." The conviction in my voice was unwavering.

She considered for a moment, searching other options, seeking alternatives…She must have already known that she could not, would not, sway me. With a sigh, she relinquished: "Fine."

I snapped the phone shut and dropped it into my pocket before I took off into the suddenly chaotic forest, pulled into an uproar by the suddenly activated instincts of a predator.

Victoria would not live to see many more sunsets. Her days were numbered.

I was hunting to kill.


End file.
